Woman Re-Arrested In Connection with 2011 Nightclub Death

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) — Police re-arrested a woman Sunday nearly three years after her initial arrest in connection with the killing of a medical student in a brawl at a South of Market nightclub in 2011.

Tracy Luong, 25, of San Jose turned herself in to police and was booked on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and battery causing serious bodily injury, police said.

She joins Ding Minh Nguyen, 36, of Richmond in custody, who was arrested last week in connection with the Jan. 9, 2011, homicide.

On that day, 30-year-old Joe Hernandez, a medical student at the University of California at San Francisco, was hit in the head by an object during a brawl at Temple nightclub at 540 Howard St.

Hernandez was found unconscious on the floor of the nightclub and was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where he died two days later.

A woman wearing high-heeled shoes struck a bystander in the head who was trying to intervene in the fight, police said.

Police announced in May 2011 that the then-22-year-old Luong had been arrested and was suspected of being the woman wielding high-heeled shoes in the brawl.

However, Luong was never charged and it wasn’t until after Nguyen was arrested that police announced Luong had been arrested again.

Police had previously released surveillance video from inside the club that night in the hope of finding Hernandez’s assailant but have not commented on what evidence led to Nguyen’s arrest.

According to police, Hernandez was a fourth-year UCSF medical student, volunteered as a disaster relief worker after Hurricane Katrina, learned Spanish so he could work with refugees in Guadalajara, Mexico, and worked as an unpaid hospital volunteer as a teenager.